In Each New Home

In each new home, I stood for some time in the basement, tracing the copper pipes, the old cast iron waste, the wires electric, even the old ceramic spindles. I followed each joist to its seat, and sought out the origin of dust, perhaps from powder post beetles or termites. I sought out hollow spaces beneath the bluestone flags, hoping to locate a hidden cistern, or treasure, historic. Once, the water feeds were so jammed with rust, I had to hammer them free. I had to learn the patience of plumbing.

Sometimes it was simply the light that fell across a dining room floor, a built-in cupboard with distorted glass, or a back and narrow stairs. I love one house, the antebellum slave quarters, then filled with mouldering piles of pecans. The house was a four over four, with uncanny dimensions.

Another was glorious with detritus, its original inhabitant a famed suffragette, having left her dampened maroon Baedeker’s, advertisements for the Hamburg-America. Cunard Line, Lusitania deck-plans barely impeded the path, back out the kitchen.